By permission of Messrs. Waring.
LOUIS XV. PARQUETERY COMMODE.
With chased and bronze-gilt mounts.
(Formerly in the Hamilton Palace Collection.)
LOUIS XV. COMMODE.
BY CAFFIERI.
The commode in the Wallace Collection (illustrated p. [171]) is of the time when Louis XV. was in his minority, and of the days of the Regency. It is by Charles Cressent (1685-1768), who was cabinetmaker to Philippe d'Orleans, Regent of France. This is an especially typical specimen of the class to which it belongs as showing the transition style between Louis XIV. and the succeeding reign.
To establish Louis the Fifteenth's petits appartements the gallery painted by Mignard was demolished, and later, in 1752, the Ambassadors' Staircase was destroyed, the masterpiece of the architects Levau and Dorbay, and the marvel of Louis the Fourteenth's Versailles.
It is necessary to bear these facts in mind in order to see how a new French monarch set ruthlessly new fashions in furniture and created a taste for his personal style in art. In the first part of the Louis Quinze period the metal mountings by Caffieri and Cressent are of exquisite style; they are always of excellent workmanship, but later they betrayed the tendency of the time for fantastic curves, which had affected the furniture to such an extent that no straight lines were employed, and the sides of commodes and other pieces were swelled into unwieldy proportions, and instead of symmetrical and harmonious results the florid style, known as the "rococo," choked all that was beautiful in design. Meissonier, Director of the Royal Factories (1723-1774), was mainly responsible for this unnatural development. He revelled in elaborate combinations of shellwork and impossible foliage.
In the Louis XV. commodes illustrated (pp. [173], [175]) it will be seen how far superior is the design and treatment of the one which was formerly in the celebrated Hamilton Collection. Its chased and gilt mounts are harmoniously arranged, and though the ornamentation is superbly rich, it breaks no canons of art by overloaded detail or coarse profusion. Not so much can be said for the other commode of the rococo style, even though the mounts be by Caffieri and executed in masterly manner. There is a wanton abandonment and an offensive tone in the florid treatment which point clearly to the decline of taste in art.